Our "Hope and Change" guy and the rest of Congress are behaving like a bunch of spoiled aging children playing stupid one-upmanship "gotcha" games with each other instead of doing anything useful. We cruised past the Carbon Dioxide 400 parts per million threshold on May 13. If we continue with business as usual, we will cross the 450 parts per million limit in a couple of decades.

But the speech may well mark a pivot point. Not shockingly, Obama is attempting to find middle ground, where there is more oversight and more restraint regarding activities that pose serious civil liberties and policy challenges. The McCainiacs of the world are likely to howl about any effort to place the effort to counter terrorism into a more balanced perspective.

It's not entirely coincidental that the Obama Administration never put tough conditions on banks receiving bailout money, never prosecuted a single top Wall Street executive for the excesses that led to the near meltdown, and still refuses to support a tiny tax on financial transactions that would bring in tens of billions of dollars as well as discourage program trading.

Nonetheless, I WILL be in that number when millions gather this Saturday to STAND UP to Monsanto, and STAND FOR life, nature, and the heart and soul of who we are. To put it bluntly, Monsanto -- in its perverse desire to own and control all the seeds in the world -- is a true evil force that seeks to impose the heartless values of the machine on humanity and nature.

Regarding the President's speech yesterday on counterterrorism at the National Defense University; will his rhetoric be of substance & conform to the actual policy and actions he takes? Otherwise it will be just empty hot air. Based on the history of actual policy and actions taken by this president extreme skepticism is in order whether his speech will be anything more than rhetoric.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin's repeated and drug out heckling of President Obama during his drone policy speech is simply the latest in a disgusting and damaging repeat act that has become almost ritual.

The United States has been in a permanent state of war ever since. And on May 16, 2013, the Obama Administration's Pentagon officials testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they expected this permanent state of war to last another 10 to 20 years.

Has the mainstream media, in a very hectic week, overlooked the Robin Hood Tax story?

While one in three women in the military are raped by fellow servicemen during their service, many civilian women living near US military bases in the United States and in other countries are also raped by US military personnel. This case gives hope for those living in other countries who have never been able to hold the rapist accountable because he has been able to leave the country.

Obama gave what the pundits are calling one of his major speeches. And one of America's leading activists interrupted it brilliantly.

Code-Pink founder, Medea Benjamin, took President Barack Obama head-on during a major foreign policy speech the president was giving Thursday on drone policy and related issues. Benjamin demanded that the president close the Guantanamo Bay prison immediately.

What advice would you offer a woman, someone you don't know, who on the phone asks, ""I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating on me. We have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again? God says to forgive, but it's been so hard to do. I want to forgive, so we can get on with our lives." Consider what advice Pat Robertson offered.

recently fierce consumer advocate and needler of banks Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called out Wall Street regulators for their habit of giving tepid punishments to misbehaving banks, and asked the agencies to justify their policy of settling with the wrongdoers out of court.

The Senate today rejected an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to let states require labels on food or beverages made with genetically modified ingredients.

The most famous running joke in the Peanuts comic strip repeats at the beginning of every football season. Charlie Brown asks Lucy to hold the ball for him so he can kick it. At the last moment, just before Charlie gets his foot on the pigskin, Lucy snatches it away. Sound familiar? It's the story of Barack Obama and the Republican Congress.

Why does it take us so long to address puppy mill cruelty? Hopefully, this Congress will pass the PUPS Act which would hopefully stop further dog cruelty in puppy mills.

Baylor University's ban on homosexuality and the consequent "don't ask don't tell" approach to lesbians on the basketball team needs to be repealed!

Black Folk Don't is a web series that explores stereotypes of Black Americans, and debunks them.

First Francis I, then Wolff Blitzer - is the world bowing to (gasp!) atheism? Glenn Beck thinks it's Obama's fault, of course.

As we move on the notion of immigration reform the question arises, mightn't we be better served with reforming citizenship itself? Even our own?